


In Sorrow

by ChildofStorms



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode Tag, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, I'm just trying to cope, Post-Series, Season 8, Season/Series 08, Temporary Character Death, The magic of voltron lions, VLD Final Episode What Final Episode | FEWFE, and how little we truly know, pre-sheith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 07:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16990461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChildofStorms/pseuds/ChildofStorms
Summary: Sometimes, Keith hears them. Whether they are simply memories or something more, he couldn't tell. But as he slips farther away from the ones he calls his family, they only continue to grow.





	In Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I was loving S8 until the end, and I won't think about those credits. Especially since they were forced to put them in last minute to begin with. Here's how I tried to combine all that and make something that's less heartbreaking.

Some nights, he could still feel Pidge’s hand in his own, nails clawing into his wrist in a desperate attempt to hold on. Seeing frantic eyes and hearing each and every desperate cry for help before being drowned out by the darkness.

Some nights, there’s blood, the spectral binding that reminded Keith of Macidus’ claws shooting out from the shadows of underground tunnels increasing their grip and writhing into each of his friends until the only thing left in his hands are shredded and unrecognizable remains.

He felt like it was a broken promise, to Allura and the others, he knew it was; but it was so much easier to slip back into Marmora. Easier to stand in front of hundreds who would have willingly killed him only months before than before those who saw him as he truly was.

He did answered calls, though. Keith could still manage that.

Pidge came in with every excited update, orrow hidden in the present victories she made.

He answered each time Hunk needed to let out the same frustration Keith himself felt when dealing with others.

He tried to keep in touch with Shiro, but managing Atlas left so little time and their moments of peace never seemed to coincide. Managing a new love took even more of that time as well, until Keith found himself with precious little.

Shiro tried to apologize, to change it, but Keith had looked him dead in the eye and forced himself to say it was alright.

Shiro didn’t disagree after that.

Lance, though; Keith waited for calls, for any form of communication. He was almost late to several meetings, looking for any sort of connection that could be reignited as he realized the kind of distance Lance was creating.

Each response, any initiation to stay in touch, only came when Lance was surrounded by family, when Veronica and Axca reminded him to. 

And Keith, he couldn’t say if it was okay. He couldn’t say if it wasn’t, either. 

He couldn’t blame them, not when he was the one to place so many star systems away between him and the others.

Keith had a small hunch that their lions knew before them, sensed the irreparable distance and were willing to act on it. Keith wanted to say that the presence of the others was comforting, how Lance’s markings coming alive with their internal glow formed some sort of promise that things could become right again. But the only thing he saw was the lions flying for the final time before setting down in a half circle around Allura’s memorial. 

Eyes fading out, dormant.

The only thing he had after were promises that couldn’t even last a year.

It was five years since then, him now past the age when Shiro first died—when they hadn’t even realized they lost one of their own—that he started to hear it.

Softly, at first. Murmured whispers that reminded him of when Red or Black would be a far distance away, yet still connected to his very heart. Some days were worse than others, some he didn’t even hear them. On one of the bad mornings, Krolia looked at him with worry when he couldn’t stifled back a groan during one of the few meetings they scrabbled up time for.

He’d batted the concern away, practiced from past habits, but jarring with how long it had been since he’d felt the need to rely on it.

Krolia frowned, quiet, before redirecting. “I was in contact with Atlas, not even a quintant ago.” 

Keith only gave a small hum, his eyes focused into the small dents dotting the metal table between them. Krolia’s frown only deepened.

“They’re meeting again, but still haven’t heard if you’ll join them.”

Another meeting where he knew his nightmares grew even more vivid. Where the whispers could potentially increase. Keith shook his head, in some half attempt to shake the thoughts while replying in the best way he could. 

Krolia sighed, eyes closing, and Keith couldn’t tell if it was to block out this image of what he’d become. Someone who’d run off, who let calls go more and more unanswered as time passed.

“We’re too busy, Krolia. What with the next election.” It was half-assed, almost a plea for her to look at him again. She did.

“We both know you’re not.”

Keith made sure that no one besides Krolia see his hasty excuse about leaving for paperwork, especially as it was really for an impromptu collision of his face and Kosmo’s fur. Almost thirty, and he still relied on this. He wondered what the others used, if their methods were more available than he had ever been to them.

Even in the days before that final battle, he’d always wondered if what he’d given them was ever enough. If they truly were the family he claimed them as.

It felt more often now that he had to convince himself that they were.

That night, the whispering increased into shouts for help. 

Shouts to form Voltron. Shouts to hang on, and shouts to let go, and even as he opened his eyes and saw only a dimly lit room, it was as if the source of the noise lay shoulder to shoulder with him, forcing it all into his ears until he felt like he could scream and he hoped to whatever was watching this happen that the rooms were soundproof, imprisoning any reaction he’d given, and—

His tablet hummed, three light notes followed by a pause before repeating.

The whispering cut off, but not even the notification could dampen the deafening silence left in its wake.

Keith didn’t answer, burying his head as far under his sheets and pillow as he could.

The next morning, Krolia looked even more exasperated than usual. Kolivan mirroring the look as they all settled down into the council meeting.

He left before they could say anything to him and avoided his room until there was only a few hours until dawn.

The next night, he felt Allura’s wrapping her arms around him, so tight yet almost weightless as more and more of her drifted into the universe itself.

Barely anything was left of her when she last went to Lance, her hands leaving her mark on his cheeks.

Another night, returning to their reality, his seat the only one filled as Honerva lashed out one final time.

Another, the whispers coming from Allura’s statue, dead eyes somehow watching his every move, condemning them.

Another

Another

Another

The next time a call came through, he forced himself to accept it. The id flashing Lance’s name in unavoidable neon.

They were both quiet at first, Lance’s breathing quiet and sparse as if to limit white noise. As always, he started first.

“We haven’t heard from you in a while, you know. You keep missing out on monthly meet ups.”

Keith swallowed, forcing down the immediate response that always came so easily. The second wasn’t much better. “That’s what happens when you’re far away.”

“Yeah, yeah you got a point.” A pause, almost unnoticeable if it wasn’t for how long Keith had spent within each of the other paladin’s minds. “But that’s what communication programs are for. Long distance and all that.”

“I’ve just been too busy.” Again, it felt just as weak. He could feel Krolia’s frown, it could almost be cemented onto Lance’s as he shot back a response.

“Yeah, well so are we.” A sigh emerged, so utterly defeated that Keith wished he could take it back. Agree with Lance, even push himself to travel back to where memories awaited him. He gave himself a small push instead.

“How—how is everyone doing?”

“Better than a year before.” The reply was too quick, harsh again Keith’s ears.

Keith gulped again, his throat remaining stubbornly dry. 

“Are we still meeting this year, outside of your month ones?”

“We always do. We’ll see you then, Mullet.” 

Keith could feel the tightness, the undertone of sorrow that never managed to leave Lance even after all this time.

Lance ended the call before Keith could reply.

Krolia looked smug the next day when he announced he’d be taking a leave of absence in the next couple of phoebs.

The dreams only increased as time drew closer to the meeting, and Keith couldn’t tell if they were from whatever was causing the whispering, or if all of it was from the stress of meeting with his should-of-been family after more than six years of limited interaction. 

He convinced himself it was the later after the night where he found his dreamself twisted and broken, Allura and Honerva pinned him down and using his quintessence to reignite life into all realities.

“You were the fire, and then the expanse that held it all.” They’d whispered. 

Allura held his gaze as his vision greyed and dimmed, only her dead eyes like the marble they remembered her by still in focus.

“You held it all.” 

The weeping cry that was pulled from his very being woke him, his chest heaving as his vision continued to blur in and out. It was with a shudder that he realized every night after that dream, the whispers changed to match her words.

He couldn’t sleep after that.

The only good thing about the dreams was that it almost made the gathering feel less like a finality than before, but even as he was greeted with hesitant smiles, even as they walked closer to the memorial, he refused to look up. 

He refused to even as Lance let out a quiet sigh.

“Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll forget how she looked like. Then I come here, and I realized it’s still as perfect as that—as…” he trailed off.

‘Look up, look at what you held’

The others were too far ahead to see how Keith jumped with the sudden influx of the whispering, their attention focused on what was left of their friend.

When he finally saw Black’s gaze over the hill, he could almost pretend that their eyes still watched and observed him. The paint of each lion appeared dull now, even more so than the time they’d been hit by the Altean acolytes, or when Honerva herself had tried to use them to fuel her wormhole.

They were now only hollow, like the looks Shiro kept directing at him, his eyes unreadable despite all the years he had known the man who meant so much to him. It made his skin crawl as he sat down next to the others, the crawling almost to the point of unbearable as Hunk tried to give out some sort of supportive gesture to him.

‘what you held, look, look’

He directed his eyes down at the table, Shiro’s hand just in his periphery while Lance’s slouched posture seemed to invade even more of his limited vision. He started to find another thing to focus on, not wanting to see the glint of metal that appeared three years ago, or the tightening of tendons from Lance as he pretended to still be happy. 

His shoulders tensed in shock when he realized the glint was nowhere to be found, and he couldn’t help but look up towards Shiro, each and every movement slowed and cautious. Shiro saw it anyway, his quick downward glance letting Keith know that Shiro knew, because of course he always knew.

He gave a small smile, his voice quiet, “Not everyone is willing to let me choose how I live.”

Pidge looked up at that, close enough to hear despite Keith hoping that no one else had. Her lips twisted in a grimace, the same scowl that appeared every time technology failed her.

“It hasn’t even been a year, how’re you doing?”

Shiro’s smile stayed the same, “Not as bad as when you last asked, Pidge.”

The whispers coalesced with that, a singular unit that was only a buzz inside Keith’s thoughts, yet somehow felt like too much.

“—eith. Keith?”

He jolted back, trying to center himself as best as he could. Lance held his gaze as he forced himself to turn towards the other.

His throat was still dry, now too the point of being painful, but he kept his hands under the table to hide how they shook.

“Sorry, would you repeat that?”

Lance held his gaze, his eyes searching for anything. It stayed that way for too long, longer than Keith was ever comfortable with, and it was a weight lifted from him when Lance repeated himself.

“How’s the Galra side? I hope Krolia and Kolivan are doing well?”

The small talk started with that, almost repetitive, and for a moment Keith could see the Castle around them. Could almost see white hair just at the edge of his peripheral. The tired lines on all their faces where replaced with skin that was only blemished with small breakouts along their chins and foreheads. Or with bruises from training and rough battles. He remembered when he thought that was the worst thing, before realizing that the sleepless night added up.

He was fairly sure he was taught that before the others, back when he first felt loss of someone too important, maybe not before Shiro, but a small part wished he could go back to when the physical affects were less.

Despite the constant whispering, he kept himself in the conversations, hoping that he sounded more confident as time passed. When they moved away as the moon was completely overhead, he turn to begin the long trek back towards the city, his body even more heavy than when he first arrived.

“Keith?”

He froze, the whispering rising until he turned around. Pidge stood there, arms wrapped around herself as the chill of the night set in. 

“We usually stay the night, remember? Say goodbyes and all that the next day.”

“I—” Keith tried to begin, his lungs refusing to work, his throat closing even tighter. 

Pidge pressed her lips together before she unclenched her jaw. “you know, we all messed up. All of us. And we had every excuse to. Even before, when you left us, we did it then, too. And now, with us still letting you stay away.” Her voice drifted off with a tremble, the sound demanding that Keith reach out to her. He almost did before she carried on.

“We can’t be whole anymore, but we can still try for the next best thing.” She held out her hand, her wrist flicking back and forth in an attempt to make him hurry.

“Maybe we should even spend a bit longer together. Here, or maybe Atlas.”

Keith let her pull him towards the small rooms they’d first used all those years ago. He’d even returned her smile, the motions somehow easier than before. He couldn’t keep them stained into his lips after his door closed.

He kept awake, hearing movement from the other rooms besides his own, he even heard Hunk’s low voice talking to someone else. He assumed it was either Shay or Vrepit Sal.

He didn’t mean to drift off.

That night, he stood in the center of the universe once more. The lions around him, their eyes flickering, and he knew it wasn’t just Black or Red that stared into his very being.

‘You held’

Unlike before, the words sent ice throw him, electric and burning. Stifling and constricting all at once.

‘you still hold’

His skin felt all at once like it would peel from every inch of his body under their gaze, the sensation growing more and more until he collapsed to his knees, wondering if he’d ever be able to move from where he now lay.

‘let go’

It repeated, over and over again, until he felt something within him shift out of place.

The whispering changed, subtle at first, still overpowering, but for a brief moment he heard his name. Then again, the new voices growing and joining the chaos and pain until they merged into one.

Keith forced his eyes open.

The calling of his name was louder, shrill next to his ears and behind him as arms tried to pull him away from the blue metal he had pressed against his brow.

“What are they doing to him?” The cry was desperate, the deeper voice cracking, and he felt Hunk’s arms tighten even further as he pulled at him again.

“I—I don’t know, but we can’t stop!” Shiro’s, the steady control he always expected from him absent.

He understood why though, as the chill from his dreams only increased, as his lungs felt like they were twisted and ingrown. He forced his head to crane up, and saw glowing eyes staring back. A worried growl shaking all of them to their very bones.

He forced himself to talk as the growl faded, voice shaking and the words cutting out as his lungs failed to supply enough air.

“They said, I held. Held it all. I—I understand.”

Lance’s voice howled behind him, indignant even though Keith could no longer hear the words. Four pairs of arms encircled him, held him up as his legs gave out.

Their words turned from panic to desperate, calling out to something, anything. He heard another growl, this time resounding as more joined in.

And the pain ceased. He couldn’t stop his body from trembling, and he could still feel the ice and fire, the heaviness that felt like it would take even the smallest change around him to become too much. He could still feel arms embracing him.

He felt another join in, melting into the vacant area before him until no more room was left.

It was so hard to crack his eyes open, but he managed to just in time to see the world turn into brilliant light.

-  
-  
-

When he woke up, the whispering was gone, and he found himself staring up from the feet of the blue lion. Her eyes still glowed, though they no longer held him captured in their gaze. A warm hand brushed through his bangs, and with a blink he looked upwards to see that it was Shiro. He sat nearest to his head, his eyes still directed at the lions. Next to him was Pidge, her eyes wide as he looked straight ahead, and even though he hadn’t looked towards the other side, he knew Lance and Hunk were nearby as well.

“He should be fine, the lions knew what would be too much.” His stomach dropped as the familiar voice washed over him, the same lilt to each word a thing he never thought he would hear again.

When he turned his head, it caught everyone’s attention.

His voice cracked, the words dry in his mouth, “How, how did you?” 

Shiro continued to stroke his hair, and he felt Pidge curl her fingers around his own.

“With all of you, and the lions. I’m so sorry it took so long.” Her smile was the same as he remembered, and Keith found that he couldn’t force anymore words to emerge.

He would tell her later, though. Admit to how he failed, how they all did. How they crumbled and went their own ways without her. How families needed all parts, or how at least theirs did.

He wouldn’t hide how much he missed her, how it wasn’t just the distance that cut into him.

Between one blink and the next, he drifted back into sleep before even realizing that he had.


End file.
